Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s new political party is a proxy for opposition party DAP to divide the Malay community, Umno’s Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob has claimed.Ismail Sabri further claimed that the newly-registered Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) is akin to splinter party Parti Amanah Negara, alleging that the latter was meant to split up the Malay-based PAS.“Certainly when the new party was formed, their intention is to split up Umno; I believe PPBM is like PAN which became a tool for DAP to split up the Malays,” the Umno supreme council member was quoted saying yesterday by local daily Utusan Malaysia, referring to Pribumi and Amanah by their Malay initials.“PAS is a 100 per cent Muslim party that was split through PAN in order to have PAS members split up PAS, and Umno is also split up through PPBM and I believe in the end all this will become proxies to DAP,” he said.

Ismail Sabri, who is also rural and regional development minister, reportedly claimed that efforts to divide Malay-dominated parties like Umno and PAS was an attempt to weaken the Malay community.He reminded Umno members to be wary of recruitment efforts by PPBM, but also believed party members would not be influenced by Pribumi and Amanah.“I think that if a party was formed not on the basis of a struggle, but only on personal reasons due to anger, I believe Umno members will not be influenced by a party that does not have a basis of struggle for the future of Malays and Malaysians,” he said.New Umno splinter PPBM has Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as its president, Dr Mahathir as its chairman and the latter’s son and former Kedah mentri besar Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir as vice-president of the protem committee.PPBM is expected to work with other Pakatan Harapan parties to form a grand coalition heading into the 14th general election.Source -Malay Mail Online-